WCP Online Newsletter

Pigeon River trip
by Steve Heiselman (email)

Contributed 06/12/2005  Responses:  0

On Saturday, John Arnold, Garret Mooney, Ryan (?) and I ran the Pigeon Gorge at what seemed to be a higher than normal level (I should have checked the guage reading before starting this, but I'm too lazy to do it now.) This was the first trip on this river for my companions, and my first since the hurricanes last September. To quote Matt Buys, "Floods giveth, and floods taketh away." In this case, the floods have taken away several nice play/surfing waves on the river, and not given anything back, as far as I can tell. Snap Dragon (I think that is what it was called) is nearly completely rearranged. The wave that used to be the popular park and play spot, is virtually gone. Now, there is a small, fast, surging wave that you can surf, if you can stay on it. Roostertail, which was rearranged earlier last year and left with a smaller downstream surfing wave, has been changed again. The gravel bar on river right where folks used to get out, stretch, and watch the action is completly gone, as is the smaller downstream surfing wave. There were at least two other waves on the river that I regularly surfed that have disappeared as well. Perhaps at a slightly lower release, one or more of these waves might reappear. If you are a rodeo star (which I am not) some of your play spots are probably still viable (except Snap Dragon). In fact, the wave at Lost Guide looked pretty smooth, so it might still be really nice for the shorter play boats. In any case, it was still a fun river to paddle, but I was a little sad at the loss of several nice surfing waves so close to Asheville.